[address-policy-wg] IPv6 Policy Clarification - Initial allocation criteria "c)"

On Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 10:11:47PM +0200, Gert Doering wrote:

> > LIRs who operate closed/private networks appear not to qualify because
> > the address space in these networks will not be advertised. Was this the
> > community's intention?
> At the time this was written, "site-local" addresses where considered
> as the solution for these networks.  Since then, they have mostly been
> deprecated, but a new solution (draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-04.txt)
> seems to be in sight.

Which is a good thing. Site-local would bring up the same problems, RfC1918
space did (to organisations connecting to each other, both using 10/8 =>
Double NAT). With globally unique local addresses this would be solved. I
just did a quick read of the document (did not have the time for slow
reading), but I think the most interesting question still open is "how do I
get my globally unique local address prefix". 

But that concept would sort out a lot of the existing problems we have with
IPv4 today.

> Of course there are large numbers of enterprises that operate closed 
> networks, but does anyone have numbers about the number of *LIRs* that 
> purposely and permanently do not connect their PA-allocated network blocks 
> to "the Internet", while still paying yearly RIR membership fees?

I do not have real numbers, but know a few providers doing that. When they
manage their customers networks, they use globally unique addresses for
that. Currently this can only be done with IPv4 PA/PI space, as RfC1918
addresses are not unique. So they use addresses out of their assignment to
have guaranteed uniqueness. Also I know of some of the big customers of
ours doing it. 

Reality is though, mostly they assign the complete block and then just
nullroute it, if traffic comes from the outside, as I think of it. So the
block is is announced, but not reachable, though not "connected to the
internet".

But if globally unique local addresses (can I get an acronym for that, that
is way too long ... and GULA even sounds nice) become reality this would be
an alternative, as uniqueness seems to be the only reason for using these
addresses. 


Nils
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